Change Yourself to Change your World

Friday, January 6th, 2017

In my life, when things weren’t going as I’d like or as I had planned, my first thought was often, “I wish that person would change” or “I wish the situation would change.” And while I think that’s only natural, I had to constantly remind myself that the only who can change my predicament is me.

If I’m not satisfied with the number of calls I’m getting from potential clients with speaking gigs, for instance, then I’m the one who needs to make some changes…not them. Maybe my marketing is off or I’m not quite reaching out in a way in which they’re receptive. Perhaps I’m not totally in tune with my target market or I’m not finding the right person to speak with about the speeches I have to offer.

This means that I have to keep modifying my approach—I have to keep making changes—until I figure out what works. I can’t make them call me back and I can’t make them hire me for a speaking event no matter how much I want both of those to happen. All I can do is make changes to the way I do things until I find a process that gets the response I’m after.

The same is true in most any area of your life. If you’re not happy in your relationship, you can wish your spouse would change, you can even work on to forcing change (good luck with that), but if you don’t make changes yourself, then you’re likely on an unhealthy path.

If you’re not happy with your job, you can complain about how your boss won’t implement positive changes or about how your business would be better if only your clients would change, but you have no control over any of these either. The only one you can change is YOU.

The great thing about this is that, because you are the only one you can change, you hold the control over your future in your very own hands. Don’t like your current position at work? You can change it. Not happy with how you’re getting along with your spouse? You can change it.

What you put out into the world is generally what you get back. It’s like when you smile at someone you pass on the sidewalk and they instantly smile back. You may never have received that smile if you hadn’t smiled first. The same is true on a number of fronts.

If you want more love in your life, then give more love. If you want more happiness in your life, then release more happiness into the world around you. If you own your own business and you want more clients, then reach out to more people…and on and on.

If what you truly want is change in your life, then that change must start with you. Take one positive action at a time and you will soon see that you had the control over your own circumstances all along. This doesn’t mean that you’ll always get what you want or how you want it, but it will surely lead you down the right path.